


Birdsong

by insertcleveracejoke



Series: Hadestown AU -- Let the Fates create a happy ending [14]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: 'oh yeah lemme just sing a song in front of the Styx just a sec', Emile knows to be Patton's friend, Gen, Hadestown AU, Just kidding Patton is a cinnamon roll, M/M, Most of the time, Roman finds his way to the Underworld, and you know it, anyway this took me a lot of time, as always he's Very Gay but he doesnt get much chance to show it, or else, so you better enjoy this, that dramatic bitch, theres no alternative, whats the alternative you ask?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 14:03:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15887514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insertcleveracejoke/pseuds/insertcleveracejoke
Summary: "It's quite simple, really", Emile said. "There's the train. You just have to follow its tracks."(He said simple. He didn't say easy.)





	Birdsong

Emile was a kind god. He was one of the very few that Patton had protected when the famine happened. Emile's job was simple enough, just delivering messages and taking care of the roads, but it took him to the Underworld enough times that Logan was polite and Patton had decided they were friends, as he so easily did sometimes. Emile didn't complain. Patton was a kind god, too, when there was no one to threat those he cared about. (And when there was, it was always a good idea to be on his side, maybe one or two steps back too. Just in case.)

Therefore, he reasoned, it shouldn't be too much of a bother to do him a favor and give the singer the instructions he would need to get to the Underworld. Still. There were very few humans Emile didn't get along with, and that mortal had been nice enough at first, but he was still a little... not angry, exactly, about how he made Virgil feel. Emile was rarely angry. But he wasn't happy with him either.

Yet, a favor was a favor.

"It's quite simple, really", Emile said. "There's the train. You just have to follow its tracks."

(He said simple. He didn't say easy.)

The tracks were made of something that might have looked like steel and iron, but the way it seemed to suck the light out of the forest convinced Roman that he was in the right path more than anything else. He had to be subtle, though. He had never been subtle for one day in his entire life. Roman had always been a birdsong. But even birdsongs knew how to keep their songs inside when it was dark outside and the moonlight and stars seemed to blur. He walked, and walked, and walked, slipping behind trees with too sharp branches and too dark leaves whenever he saw someone else walking in the same path. Roman kept going and ignored the feeling that something was observing him. He didn't look back. (What was behind looked at him.)

He thought about Virgil instead, and how his diamond eyes would have been enough of a light for him. His feet found the way.

"The River Styx is made of walls that never stop being building", Emile had warned him. "You can't jump over them, and there's razorwire that could steal your soul with a touch. And, of course, there's the dogs..."

The walls had been bad enough, high and wide and completely, disgustingly unnatural in a way that Roman knew probably drove Patton mad. (He couldn't think about Patton now, not when he was going after Virgil, for Virgil, even if he was going to where him should be at this time of the year). Roman had hated them. Grey and dirty, rising from the ground as broken stone, something sick and disformed about those straight lines. He wished he could be back home with Virgil and the greens and browns of the forest, where nothing was absolutely grey or absolutely straight.

The dogs had been worse. Or, well, only one dog, but with three heads. Its eyes were red as blood, as roses, the fangs sharp as knives or as an insult. Roman would never forget its claws. It didn't hurt him, not really, but the way it had stared into his soul as if Roman was just another piece of meat...

He used to consider himself brave, but even he had to step back. The three-headed dog only barked and drooled. He supposed he should be glad that he hadn't been hurt.

Still. Roman had had to use his last piece of bread to feed the dog so he could go through, and he still had no idea of how to pass through the wall.

"Don't look anyone in the eye. Don't give your name", Emile had said. "Be careful."

Roman had been, or would have, if he only could find the gates. Did they even exist? Suddenly he doubted, looking at the high and dark wall, built for gods.

(But it was built for men too, even if dead ones.)

In face of what was his greatest challenge still, Roman did what he did best: He sang.

Roman opened his mouth and closed his eyes and let the music pouring out follow the path that the black roses made through the dead land. His voice was sunshine in the land that never saw the sun, even when it was singing about loss. It was life even when it was singing about death. The first alive man singing in the Underworld and it had to the greatest singer the world above had ever seen. They say the Underworld accepts only souls, so he poured his out and hoped it would be enough to let him pass. I have a quest, it said, I have a duty- you will open for me. It soothed the dogs that quickly fell asleep. It soothed Roman's broken heart even as he sang, tears streaming through his face and a sad smile in his lips. Virgil used to think his voice was warm as honey. It was the only thing warm in the Underworld.

Look at me, it said, you cannot ignore my song. You cannot make me turn around. Give me back the man I love. It risked everything, defied everything Emile had said, but Roman was never a subtle man. He would never let his head down if he could sing. And sing he always could.

A birdsong let its voice fight the shadows of the Underworld for him and it won.

If it's true, he sang, if it's true that there's nothing I can do, if there's nothing I could do or say to save my love, then I'll turn around and abandon my voice that betrayed us. If there's nothing to sing. But if there's a chance...

If there's a chance, show it to me.

The walls heard. 

Walls that had been there for thousands of years or just a few hours, unnatural and disforme as they might be, they heard Roman's plea. There was a strange sound never before heard in the Underworld, and it took him a few seconds to figure out what exactly it was was. Oh, he thought.

Oh, the dead are singing with me.

(Well, Emile thought, from a distance, invisbible for mortal eyes. Well, that's unexpected.)


End file.
